Issue 1
The first issue of Hammerhand's Revenge begins with samurai warrior and friend to the Thundercats, Hachiman riding on a boat, having a good old fashioned inner monologue about his father deciding to step down and make Hachiman ruler of their people. This doesn't last long, as they are attacked by a much larger ship carrying steampunk pirate vikings. The crew quickly lays waste to Hachiman's friends and kidnaps him. This is where we meet Hammerhand, one of the most intimidating and fearsome looking villains so far. Definitely better than a talking Doberman with an undying thirst for horrible jokes. Anyway, Hammerhand tells Hachiman that he has a lot of reasons for kidnapping him, first of which is sending a ransom note to his father.
Cut to Third Earth where Panthro is working on the Thundertank, and a strange savage woman is swinging from tree to tree Brendan Frasier style. She makes her way to the Thundercats' lair, and hands Panthro a scroll letting him know about Hachiman's plight. Lion-O uses the sword of omens to check out the situation, and recognizes the steam punk pirate vikings as an old foe. The Thundercats quickly decide that they all need to go save their samurai friend, while Snarf bitches the entire time. I'm half way through issue 1 and Snarf has already gotten old in this series.
We go to the giant pirate ship where Hammerhand is explaining to Hachiman that he's been kidnapped because his father raided Hammerhand's islands, leaving them destitute. Given that, I can kind of understand Hammerhand's anger. He says he need the ransom money to take care of his people, and I am having a hard time justifying him being the bad guy here. A ship shows up, and Hammerhand assumes it's Hachiman's father here with the ransom money. It's not not. The new ship opens fire on Hammerhand ship, and a battle ensues.
Cut to the Thundercats, who are having trouble with their scanning systems. They argue about what it might be for a moment before a flock of griffins swoops down on them. Lion-O is ready to kick ass, but Tygra has to be a wet blanket about it, which gets Lion-O captured. Nice job Tygra. I never liked you anyway. Cheetara looks like she's going to go after him, but Tygra stops her. What a douche. They spend two pages debating what to do, before just continuing forward to Hachiman, assuming Lion-O will be fine on his own. Awesome friends you got there Lion-O.
We end the issue by following Lion-O, who is dropped off in a nest of mystic looking griffins. He asks why he's there, and they give him some cryptic bullshit that doesn't sound like they're throwing him a party.
Issue 2
We begin issue 2 with the Thundercats who are plowing through the forest in their Thundertank, not giving a shit what habitat they destroy. The read outs start to malfunction before an engine does the same. Wilykit and Wilykat run off too quickly, and after a while Cheetara starts to worrying and goes to find them. Tygra follows after her, and you can just tell Panthro has had it with this shit. Cheetara gets stuck in some quicksand, before we get a shot of Tygra getting tangled up in some very evil looking vines. We then cut back to Panthro, who has unfairly been saddled with Snarf and his obnoxious... Snarfing.
We cut to the griffins' lair where Lion-O has been locked in one of those dangling cages that all crazy villains seem to have. I wonder if there's a catalog or something I'm not getting. Lion-O tries to grab the sword to check on his friends, but the ghost of Jaga shows up telling him to worry about himself instead of his friends. Lion-O argues, because what the fuck does an omniscient spirit being know?
On another part of the planet Wilykat has lost track of his sister, and is wandering through the woods looking for her. Back at the Thundertank, Panthro has had enough of waiting for the others, and decides he needs to create an electromagnetic induction. Snarf asks him what the fuck that is, which is absolutely a fair question. Panthro rattles off some nonsense science jargon that my seven year old sister in law would question. He then starts working on the tank, and gets it started but fries Snarf in the process... HA!
Cut to Tygra, who is saved from the vines by a magical lightning bolt from nowhere, while Cheetara uses her staff to get herself out of the quicksand, because she's a badass like that. We go back to Wilykat who has found his sister lodged in the trunk of a tree. He pulls her out only to be confronted by Anubis... the forest guardian? I wasn't aware that was part of his lore, but ok. He attacks the Thundercubs, but Tygra and Cheetara show up to fight Anubis and are quickly overwhelmed. He's only slowed down when Panthro shows up in the Thundertank. Anubis tells them that they are trespassing on his land, and within the space of the last page they go from enemies to allies because who needs good writing?
Issue 3
The third issue begins with Lion-O laying in his cage having a whiny, emo inner monologue about how the leader of the Thundercats would never get captured this way. You're fucking Lion-O! Quit whining and do something! A griffin comes and walks him to their throne room where he meets an angel looking lady with giant wings who we're told is the griffin princess Altaira. I call bullshit. I've seen griffins, and this chick's just an angel that looks like she belongs in a Diablo game. They have a long winded dialogue which basically amounts to Lion-O has to let her do some Vulcan mind meld and see into his heart and dreams so she can assess his motives for being on Third Earth. Lion-O agrees and she gives him a drink that makes him feel strange and disoriented. I'm assuming she's about to date rape the leader of the Thundercats. She doesn't though. Classy lady. Instead we get an uninteresting look into Lion-O's mind that tells us exactly what we already know, Lion-O is awesome.
Back to the Thundercats, who thank Anubis for his help before he disappears back into the forest. The Thundercats take off, discussing battle strategies until they are attacked by a tank belonging to the steam punk pirate vikings. This leads to a tank battle that is nowhere near as awesome as a tank battle should be. It's mostly dialogue. Cheetara wins it by jumping to the bad guys' tank and kicking the shit out of a bunch of them. They yell some shit back and forth, and it looks like they're going to fight hand to hand. We don't get to see that right now though. We go to Lion-O who is begging like a bitch for this princess to let him go. She says she's not sure she should, because he uses technology, and apparently that's evil. Lion-O quickly convinces her not only to let him go, but to let him ride her griffin subjects into battle. That's seriously how this one ends.
Issue 4
We open issue 4 with what basically amounts to a full blown replay of the end of the last issue, only this time it's narrated by Snarf. Imagine my glee. That leads us to the battle where we're still focusing on Snarf for some reason. He claims he's going to fight, but doesn't. The cubs accuse him of being a chicken. Note to the writers of this comic book, we're perfectly willing to accept half an issue of nothing but action. You don't have to come up with a stupid reason to have dialogue blocking half your images.
At one point Snarf starts giving what's supposed to be an intimidating speech from the top of the Thundertank. The bad guys are scared, but we soon see that it's because Lion-O is riding in behind Snarf on a griffin. That's neither original nor funny. The griffins change the fight for the Thundercats, running off the vikings. This leads to a conversation between Cheetara and the griffin princess, proving that passing the Bechdel test doesn't make your comic good.
We find out that the vikings are being helped by Mumm-Ra after he saved them the last time the Thundercats destroyed their ship. They also say they're going to let the Thundercats just go now, but it doesn't matter, Hachiman will be dead soon. The last scene in this issue is on the ship where Hachiman is being held captive. Hachiman's fathers' ship shows up with the reward, but Hammerhand gives the order to board the boat and kill everyone anyway. Hachiman is about to escape, but Hammerhand puts a blade to his throat, and that's where we leave off.
Issue 5
We open this issue where the last one left off. Hammerhand is ready to kill Hachiman, but suddenly the man in the crow's nest sees the Thundercats riding griffin's toward them. Yeah, that would make me shit myself too. The viking pirates start firing laser cannons at them, and hit the angel princess. Her griffin falls, but Lion-O saves her, because of course he does. Hammerhand orders his men to kepe firing, but they get hit with a shot from behind. They look to see who's firing, and it's the Thundertank. Apparently Panthro made some modifications. So it went from barely functional tank to working submarine. Pathro is a serious genius level engineer. Why the fuck isn't he running everything?
The Thundertank starts to malfunction, and Pathro says he doesn't have enough air to make it to the surface. Then, wouldn't you know it, a whale uses his blowhole to shoot Panthro up to the top. I'm not kidding, an entire page is devoted to just that happening. The rest of the issue is basically a fight scene. Lion-O gets in over his head with Hammerhand as they exchange way too much dialogue. The griffin princess tries to help him, but he gets the shit knocked out of him anyway. Hammerhand then knocks the princess into the ocean, Lion-O rushes over, but it turns out the Thundertank just happened to be there, so we don't have to worry about any sort of dramatic tension making its way in here. Thank god.
They wrap up the battle scene way too quickly, but the princess isn't ok She's unconscious. We get some tacked on bullshit about her knowing she might die if she helped, and the griffin people take her back to their lair. The last page is Lion-O visiting the princess, who doesn't wake up at the end. No idea where that's going, but I really hope the next series doesn't pick this story up.
So... how was it? Not fun. Not fun at all, but let's break it down to its parts, and start with the art.
Art
I'm starting with art for two reasons. A. I always begin with art, and 2. it's the only redeeming quality this comic series has. The art is a grittier, darker style that reminds me more of a mature anime than a Thundercats comic, but it really works. It captures the Thundercats in a way I haven't seen before, and makes up some of my favorite art work so far. It gives the whole thing, especially the numerous pointless battle sequences a really cool edge that I think comic book fans will enjoy. It doesn't stray too far from the character models we know and love, so even if you don't like the change it's not jarring. The action is great when it's not being covered up by needless speech bubbles, and the faces are fantastic, not to mention the super intimidating main villain that you don't get to see nearly enough of. Everything about the art is wonderful... if only it were backed up by good writing.
Story
The writing in this series is not awful in and of itself, but it couldn't be farther from a Thundercats comic. Instead of the awesome leader that we've come to know in Lion-O, we get a sniveling little bitch who is held captive for almost three issues before bringing a griffin army to do his dirty work. None of the other characters are much better. It's mostly stilted battle and strategy talk. That is, with the exception of Snarf who is at his most unbearable in this series. He's all over it and he won't shut up. That really drew me away from any decent story this might have had, though I don't think there was much of one. As a reader, I'm not invested in Hachiman's people, or even Hachiman himself that much. I like the Thundercats, and I like Thundera, so why would I want to read a mediocre adventure manga about Hachiman with Thundercats skin slapped on top of it? It's probably not horrible in and of itself, but as a Thundercats comic it misses every single point and leaves me feeling unsatisfied.
Other problems I have include the fact that the "battle" scenes are so loaded with dialogue and nonsense we don't need that there's very little room for the action they should be showing us, or any real interesting story to get through.There are random mythological creatures with no rhyme or reason. I'll accept the griffins, but Anubis the forest guardian? It's like they're just writing lore salad at some point. One of the biggest issues I have is with pacing. Often you'll get a long drawn out battle sequence in the middle of an issue, only to have the writers jam as much pointless exposition into the last page as possible. It got hard to read at a certain point even if it had been a good story. Things happen too quickly, there's no room for dramatic tension, and there's definitely no room for anything big to land with the reader. Another glaring issue is that the villains have five or six different motivations. All it does is muddy everything and leave the readers feeling confused. I have a feeling they did that just so they could link it back to Mumm-Ra somehow, and further convince us this wasn't a separate comic they drew Thundercats over the top of.
A nitpicky point I have is spelling. For the first issue they spell everyone's names correctly, but after that they suddenly decide to spell Tygra "Tigra" and Wilykit/Wilykat are spelled Wiley Kit and Wiley Kat. I don't mind if you want to change spelling here and there, but at least be consistent within your own series! Finally.. the filler. There is tons and tons of filler in this series. So much so that I really feel like this story could have been relegated to two issues instead of five. I know it feels like I was leaving stuff out in my descriptions. I wasn't. I gave you all the pertinent information and told you about all the important things that happened. It's all stretched out by meaningless battles and random side plots that don't matter and never return. This is all an extra big disappointment given how much I've loved the other Thundercats story lines under the Wildstorm banner.
Fun Factor
What fun factor? Seriously, I defy you to find anything fun about these comics. The battles are pointless and usually cut off by scenes with tons of lore based dialogue and heavy handed messages about technology. Lion-O's badassery is completely pissed all over, and no one else ends up looking particularly cool or heroic either. It all just sort of wraps itself up with an anti-climax. Every time it's about to get interesting, the writers decide we need two pages of people talking about stuff that doesn't matter and could have been left out. This hurts any fun I might have had from the battles. There's also no tension in this comic, so I just sort of felt like I was going through the motions. There was no emotional involvement on my part, and that's not good for fun factor. If I don't care, it just ends up being boring crap.
Overall, go ahead and avoid this one. It's not the worst series I've ever read. Not by far, but it's still pretty bad, and it might be the worst Thundercats series I've ever read. Especially avoid it if you're a Thundercats fan. It will just piss you off with how much it deviates from their characters and tone. It's boring, pointless, and really doesn't fit in with the rest of the series under the Wildstorm banner, or anywhere for that matter.
That's it for this week folks! Join me again next week when Thundercats month continues with the final Thundercats series under the Wildstorm banner, Thundercats: Enemy's Pride.
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